SchoolDesk Articles

This is the SchoolDesk blog/articles section where we'll periodically be posting useful information for all of the teachers, parents, staff and students who use SchoolDesk websites. We hope you all find this information useful and even pass it on to others who can benefit from it as well.

Be very careful of what you click on when searching for simple plugins like Adobe Flash Player or Adobe Reader because there are a LOT of very misleading links and ads in search engine results that can install a bunch of unwanted garbage on your computer, or even worse, seriously infect your whole network!

Here's a great example of being misled by results of a Google search:

It seems simple enough, I want to install Adobe Flash Player so I search for “flash player download and click on the first result, right? - WRONG!

Watch what happens if you don't pay attention to where you're downloading from, and get sucked into a scam like so many people do. Don't let this happen to you, and always download applications, software and plugins directly from the authorized distributer or owner of that software, and not from just any link you may find on the Internet or within search engine results.

Ignoring the second link which doesn’t have a five star rating and 37 reviews, I’m brought to a page called downloadinfo.com.

I click the download button, click through the download dialog box and run dialog box, and finally come to the "Optimum Download" screen for my Free Flash Player. So let's play along...Click.

Let’s see what this installs. First up is RealPlayer. Click.

Next up is some program called Solid Savings...doesn't sound good, but what the heck, right? Click.

Then something called Unit Layers...suuuure, why not. Click.

That seems like a lot of software to install in order to get my Adobe Flash Player, but we’re not done yet, here’s something called Optimizer Pro. Click.

Okay, now we’re finally installing…

Now RealPlayer, which was bundled with Flash Player wants to install the Google Toolbar? A bundle within a bundle!?! Okay, whatever… Click.

I should have my Flash Player any moment now, but wait a minute, I got VLC media player? Where’s the Adobe Flash Player I started out downloading?

Okay, VLC media player will play flash files, but I really expected to be getting Adobe Flash Player (Seriously, while I was doing this I was hoping this was one of the “download managers” that actually downloads and installs the actual Adobe Flash Player along with all of this other software. I was surprised and disappointed to get VLC media player instead.) The link I had clicked on initially displayed it’s URL as "adobe-flash-player.downloadinfo.co/" and included the text “Install AdobeFlash Player Now” so you would think that link would actually get you Adobe Flash Player, but no, it was just a misleading ad that appeared as the top result on the search page that led to a “download manager” which bundled a bunch of additional garbage spyware/software along with VLC media player, which can be downloaded for free. The downloadinfo.com website even had fine print stating that “This software may be available free elsewhere” which was hyperlinked to the download page for VLC media player!

So how should you install Adobe Flash Player? Or any other software for that matter? In this case I could have clicked on the second link which would have brought me directly to the download page for Adobe Flash Player (and unchecked the box to opt-out of installing McAfee Security Scan Plus of course.) In general we recommend downloading software directly from the software company’s website whenever possible, otherwise you could end up installing all sorts of additional, potentially unwanted or dangerous software along with the free software that you wanted to download – or even a completely different program like I just did.

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